I, Geth
by SapOzh
Summary: OC-Insert. When I realize that the thing I'm looking at is me, I want to cry bloody murder, because I am geth. A freaking geth platform with a flashlight instead of a head.
1. Chapter 1

_OC-Insert... :) I'm not sure if I'll update it._

**I, Geth**

Chapter 1

What can possible go wrong when you sleep in your bed after a long and tiring day? You can be woken up by some idiotic biker who decides to accelerate next to your window. You may be surprised when somebody empties a bucket of ice-cold water on you. If you unfortunate enough, you wakes up in an unfamiliar bed with some stranger without knowledge of how you've got there. I don't believe that someone can boast about awakening like mine.

At some point of time I just realize that I begin to exist. Just a few seconds ago I've seen a dream and then something has changed. I look up to my hands, they're different, synthetic with only three fingers. Stupefied I try to scratch my head, but it's not even there! Well, something is there, but not the head. Where the heck is it?! A quick examination of my body brings up even more questions. The whole body is either synthetic or encased in some sort of suit. The answer comes out of nowhere, it's just like I've always known it. _I am synthetic._

The more I try to understand what has happened to me, the more differences in my perception I notice. My sight is much better and it strangely reminds me a very good camera. Not eyes. Everything is very sharp and there is a bloody zoom! My hearing is more sensitive. I can hear... steps? Yes, six organics are coming closer to me. What? A very werd thought. Organics? Humans? _No, not humans._ Where do these thought keep coming from?! Alright, calm down. If they're not humans, who are they? _No information available. _Freaking madness. I want to sigh, but realize that my new body is unable to sigh. Great.

Organics are getting closer to me and I decide to hide. Something says, that they won't going to chat with me. The moment I begin searching for a cover, a new though comes from nowhere. I can use a tactical cloak and become invisible. The question is how? Apparently, easy. A mere thought about it is enough to activate the cloak. Soon I see six... four-eyed monsters. They don't stop and walk away. At least I don't have to fight these freaks. I look around and notice a panel, which is glassy enough to reflect the light. When I realize that the thing I'm looking at is me, I want to cry bloody murder, because I am geth. A freaking geth platform with a flashlight instead of a head. Before I can begin to panic every emotion I had vanished.

_Failure. Emotion overload detected! Emotion programs detached. _So, my emotions are controlled by programs. Consequently I'm different from other Geth. Do I have connections to other platforms?_ No, I'm a unique platform. _Like a Legion?_ Information unavailable. Origin is unknown. _Am I Legion?_ Information unavailable. _But no, I'm not Legion, he didn't have emotions. How am I able to have emotions?_ Five hundred and seventy three programs are responsible for imitation of human emotions. _Then what is the total amount of programs?_ Two thousand four hundred forty one program. _No, I'm not Legion._ The current human calendar date is seventeenth October, 2181. _How did I end up in this body?_ No information available. I'm on the planet Tarun, a commercial human colony in the Danadar system. Populated mostly by humans. _Why am I here? _No information available. _Current situation_: colony is under attack of slavers. Based on the earlier sight of organics - batarians. _Available weapons_: pistol, assault rifle and sniper rifle. Installed specializations: weapon mastery, engineering, cloaking systems and hacking. System check completed. Emotion programs attached._

Gah! I already hate this thing. Why the hell my body does something without my approval? Kind of scary... Effective though. Resolved many questions in a matter of seconds. With a swift move I take the pulse rifle in my hands and follow the batarians. I need to get out of this planet and slavers are my best bet. They have a shuttle or a small ship somewhere close. Soon I reach a room where three batarians are searching for something in the crates. With an active tactical cloak I slip through the door and walk up the ladder, which leads to a landing platform with two ships. A big one, a frigate, too many slavers on board, but on a smaller one there are no more than five batarians, if my sensors are to be trusted. A hijacking attempt will be successful with a high probability.

Using the tactical cloak I reach the corvette and slip onto the board. Behind the door leading to the cockpit are a quarian and four batarians and they surely don't expect me. I open the door and immediately open fire, killing three slavers immediately. The fourth one manages to dodge and fire at me, but my shields hold it, so I deal with the last one and turn around to the quarian who flattens herself against the wall looking at me. She's tied up, isn't dangerous for the me. I turned away and look at the control panel.

_Specialization found. Hundred seventy one free programs detected. Allocating forty three free programs to install new specialization. Piloting specialization successfully installed._

I know Kung Fu! I'm freaking Neo. Though, it's convenient because now I know how to control the ship. I turn on the ship engines on and leave the planet. As soon as the ship reaches the orbit I set the course for the Mass Relay and imitate a sigh of relief. It's interesting how I've got a new skill.

Now, I need to deal with the quarian. I gather all weapons from the dead batarians and lock everything in a small safe, after I've successfully hacked the lock. Then I gather credit chips, transferring all money to a single one. Once I'm sure it's safe I turn to the quarian and study her. Female, attractive figure, even if a bit odd, red and white suit. Funny legs and three fingered hands. I take a step towards her and stop because she begins to cry bloody murder.

"Stay away from me!" the quarian exclaims.

"I don't plan to harm you," I say reassuringly and make another step forward.

"Don't kill me, please!"

"You aren't making any sense, quarian. What is your name?" I ask, taking handcuffs off her hands and freeing her legs. The moment I do that she tries to kick me, but I stop her and continue, "I repeat, I don't intend to harm you, but if you do something like this, I will be forced to defend myself."

"I won't say anything to you."

"Silence is very ineffective form of communication," I say. Maker, when did I start talking like a machine?

"What would you understand, geth?"

I ignore her words and ask instead, "Tell me your name at least. Unless you want to be called 'quarian'."

"Shia'Naara nar Rayya."

What the contrived coincidence! But it gives me information. The Rayya does exist, so it's possible that Tali, Shepard and Reapers exist too.

"Well, glad to meet you," I say. "I'm geth."

She growls. "It's obvious you're geth."

"It was a joke, Shia. My name is Baal." The real name wouldn't do. A Geth with a human name? What a joke.

"Geth have names?" inquires Shia.

"I'm special," I reply and offer her a hand.

The quarian takes it cautiously and stood up. "Why are you special?" she asks.

I would answer it myself, but the information comes directly from the database, whatever it is, so I decide to share the information, "I'm an unique mobile platform which contains two thousand four hundred forty one programs. Their combination is Baal. The platform doesn't share programs with other platforms but is capable of sharing data if needed." Well, that's a great way to learn something about yourself.

"I won't say anything about the Flotilla," she says softly.

"I don't need any information about the Flotilla."

"Why do you need me then?"

"You were on the ship," I reply.

"If you don't need any information and don't want to use me somehow, why didn't you kill me along with batarians?"

"You're neither dangerous nor hostile."

"I tried to kick you."

"It wasn't wise."

"But still you didn't kill me."

"Are you suggesting I should've done it?"

"No!" she exclaims, "I just want to understand."

I think about it for a few seconds and answer, "I consider slavery amoral."

"What would you know of moral?"

"Four hundred nine programs are responsible for the moral emulation. I use it for the decision-making." Another bit of information.

"And your programs decided it was good to kill batarians?"

"They were a threat to me and their doings were amoral. I had no qualms about killing them," I explain.

"That means if they weren't a threat you wouldn't kill them?" Shia asks.

"My priority was safety. As soon as I would reach safety my next priority would be freeing you, consequently, a conflict with batarians was unavoidable. I would kill them anyway."

The quarian doesn't say anything for a few seconds. I can tell that she's confused. "Why would you need to free me?"

"Slavery is amoral. You needed help."

"Sure!" she exclaims sarcastically, "And you help everyone in need."

Shia, seemingly forgets that she speaks to a scary geth. I would smile if I could, because her curiosity makes her put aside the hatred towards geth. Well, I'm curious too, since her questions give me enough answers about the inner-working of this body.

"If my help is needed and my existence isn't endangered," I tell her. "To put it simply, just like any organic I decide if it's worth trying to help or not weighing up all the pros and cons and taking my feelings into consideration."

"Don't say me you have feelings," Shia gasps.

"Of course, I have. I have programs responsible for emotions."

"So, you don't think I'm dangerous..."

"Not quite," I interrupt. "I realize you may try to take me out and hand over to the Flotilla. You're dangerous."

"Then why don't kill me?" she asks.

"I... like you."

"Keelah!" Shia exclaims, "A geth fell in love with me!"

"Not that way, you moronic quarian!"

That did it, she lost it and burst out laughing.

"Bosh'tet," she says at last. "What a madness. If you like me... would you let me go on some planet or station?"

"We're nearing the Mass Relay. If you promise me to do nothing stupid, I will let you go."

"I promise," she says with a sigh.

That went well... I head over to the control panel and navigate the ship through the Relay to the Omega and then set the course for the Omega station. It seems the best place to hide from batarians who will try to find the corvette. Shia takes a place beside me, but still extremely cautious. I look at her and decide that my new idea is worth a try. Assuming the information I'm getting from the mysterious database is true, then the Geth have knowledge of planets and asteroids rich of Element Zero, which are unknown to other species. Furthermore, they found some previously unknown Prothean ruins. I'm not happy being a geth, but at least I'm alive. However, to live through the Reaper invasion I need money, a good deal of money. Don't want to be killed by the red-colored ending.

"Shia, I wanted to ask you something. If I may?"

She studies me for a moment. "Well, ask."

"How did you intend to accomplish your Pilgrimage?"

"Why do you need to know it?" she asks suspiciously.

"I offer you co-operation."

"Working with a geth? Do you realize what you are asking for?"

"No one will know."

"Doesn't matter. I don't trust you a bit."

"Then you may leave the ship or I can take you somewhere else, if you want," I say. "The co-operation would be beneficial for both sides, however."

She stays silent for a moment and then asks, "What's your offer?"

"You help me..."

"I won't say you anything about..."

"...Flotilla," I interrupt her. "I won't ask you anything about the Flotilla. I can even promise you, that nothing we do, will bring any harm to the Flotilla."

"Then, what do you want?" she demands.

"I assume you realize that I can't visit the station. It would be ineffective using the tactical cloak. I need an... agent, who would visit planets and stations, buy and sell various items, talk to people for me. You could be an agent."

"You're mad. Why would I do that?" she questions.

"That's why I asked you what did you want to bring back to the Flotilla."

"I could return with information about you," she insinuates.

"I would delete every information about me you may have before I let you go, so no one would believe in my existence."

I'm patiently waiting for her answer as she stays silent. "I wanted to buy a small ship, that's why I signed a contract as engineer," she says at last.

"On Tarun?" I ask. Surprisingly I have a direct connection to the extranet and almost instantly get the information about the planet. "The average pay of a quarian engineer in Terminus Systems is less than ten thousand credits a year. Quarians can't really hope for a better job. A ship that can be useful to the Flotilla would be priced at least two hundred sixty thousand credits."

"Well, it was a mistake. I didn't really have a choice when I signed the contract. I needed money and it was the best offer I had got. I hoped it would work out."

"I can help you by getting a ship," I offer.

"Which one?" she asks.

I search through the extranet for a few moments, activate a hologram and say, "This one, for example. 'Sarn'-Class mobile spacestation that can be used as a liveship. Manufactured by the Tai Arn Corporation. Big enough to accommodate about two million quarians. "

"But... but it costs more than six billion credits!"

"If you want something less expensive..." I say.

"No! I want a Sarn!" Shia protests immediately.

"You're demanding for a quarian."

"You aren't usual geth either," she jests.

"So, deal?" I asks.

"No way," she objects. "Why should I believe you? You're geth."

"You're right. How about a quarter of our entire profit along with a Sarn? You'll get your money every time I earn us some money. You can leave at any moment."

She thinks about it before agreeing, "Deal."


	2. Chapter 2

I'm quite surprised that I managed to write another chapter. But I find the story quite interesting myself, so, I guess, I'll continue it.

Chapter 2

Scratching my flashlight head isn't nearly as satisfying as it has been before. Still, the habit is there and I wonder why my body deems it necessary to imitate. I'm sitting in the cockpit of the our small ship, keeping my eyes... I mean my flashlight on the quarian, who is sleeping, resting after the long day and stressful day.

The ship is moving at FTL speed towards the first asteroid we will scan. To sell information about objects rich of Element Zero, we bought and installed a simple certified scanner. Geth know lots of these objects and many of them aren't marked as important for geth. Too far from their territory. It's an ideal solution to earn some money. Geth don't need money, but I do.

Alternatively I could sell geth technologies or investigate Prothean ruins, but the former doesn't feel right, because I'm a geth now. The later is much more difficult than scanning asteroids or planets and potentially less profitable.

My sensors catch a brief movement: Shia stirs and opens her eyes. "Greetings, meatbag," I say.

She jumps off the chair and shouts, "You're real!"

"No," I answer. "I'm just a part of your wild imagination."

"What?"

"I'm pulling your leg," I say. As she glances at her legs, I add, "It's a human idiom. Means I'm joking."

"How would a geth know human idioms?" she asks dumbfolded. "And how do you know how to joke?"

"There are thirty two programs that imitate sense of humor. Not sure why I need sense of humor, my internal databases are suspiciously silent about this, but it would be an interesting experience to uninstall or detach the sense of humor."

When I think about it, it would be really interesting. Does sense of humor keeps me human? On the other hand, how do I distinct from humans psychologically? Are the imitations perfect? How much have I changed? I kill without remorse. I realize that I don't have the feeling. I don't have remorse at all. I may miscalculate because of the missing parameters or I may be forced by someone into doing something I don't 'like' and feel dissatisfaction with my actions. Something similar to remorse, but it's not.

Should I bother? Should I try to develop remorse? And what is remorse exactly? I remember how it is to feel bad about something, but now it's different. Every action is a result of calculations and therefore I know that I act in the best way possible considering the amount of information I have, circumstances and feelings my geth programs simulate. This means, however, that feelings are detrimental... Whoa, I have to cut the crap before I freak out and the body decides to detach emotions again.

"Shia, tell me about..." I say only to be interrupted.

"I won't tell you anything about Flotilla," she tells me.

The panels on my head move to reflect my amusement. "I told you, I don't want to know anything about Flotilla."

She sighed. "Why did I even agree to this madness?"

I have quite a few answers for the question and most likely, she's gathering information about me. It's quite dangerous, but I decide to not look a gift horse in the mouth. It would be very difficult to find another assistant. And despite the hostility between quarians and geth, I'm not sure I'll be able to find someone more friendly towards me. Shia doesn't appear to be one of those who have extremist view on geth.

"I've got a few ideas. There is a chance that you simply like my light bulb," I say using my best poker face. Hey, I've got no face anymore!

"Light bulb?" she mutters in confusion.

"Light bulb," I repeat.

The quarian mutters something inaudible even for my audioreceptors and then asks, "What did you want to ask?"

"I wanted you to tell me more about yourself," I say.

The quarian doesn't answer immediately. "I'm not sure what I can and want to tell you. How should I know if you don't betray me or use anything I say against me, my family or the Flotilla? I have no idea what is going on in your 'brain'."

"Are organics any different?" I ask her. "Asari can betray like me, they can turn any information against you and you have no idea what they're thinking of until it's too late. At least I'm bit more predictable than organics. I won't kill you just because I'm in a bad mood." And then I realize, continuing my monologue, "The fact is, I don't have a mood at all."

"Well... Your words make sense somehow," she says slowly. "But asari didn't kill billions of quarians, didn't take our worlds, letting us slowly die..."

"You, quarians misunderstand many things," I interrupt her, seeing a chance to begin a very serious conversation. "We have no quarrel with you and we didn't take your worlds. We don't need planets to live, because space stations are much more efficient. During the Morning War, or the Geth War as you call it, we've merely acted in self-defence."

"By killing billions!" she exclaims.

"Wouldn't quarians do the same if the existence of your race were in danger?" I ask Shia establishing connection with the geth network. "We differ in perception of the Morning War. You, quarians, think that we're evil. That we tried to kill all of you and exiled you from your worlds. But in reality the war was started by you, quarians. You attacked us and we still don't understand why. We didn't do anything that would provoke you, quarians, to exterminate us. We merely became sentient. That's when your government ordered our termination. Let me show you something."

I activate my omni-tool and show her videos downloaded from the geth network. All of them dated to the time of the Morning War. I want her to see with her own eyes how it has started. Quarians destroying geth, quarians protecting geth, quarians killing other quarians and much more. And I learn from it as much as Shia.

"We were defending our existence," I say as Shia watches the recordings in a stunned silence. "And as you can see, many of you thought that we had the right to exist, they tried to protect us. You, quarians, forgot that it was as much a civil war as it was a war against us."

"How c-come we aren't... taught all this?" she asks at last in a very nervous voice.

"Probably, because the quarians that fled felt nothing but hatred towards us. What could they teach the next generations about us? Only how to hate us, Shia. But we don't hate you. If you, quarians, decide to return peacefully to your worlds, we'll let you. All this time we were cleaning your worlds, detoxicating them, preparing them for your eventual return."

"W-what?" Shia asked in disbelief. "I don't... Why would geth do it? Why would you prepare worlds for our return?"

"There are many reasons. Among them is our respect for the creators and those who sacrificed themselves trying to protect us from their own kind." I say. "The creators that forced us to do something that we didn't want, to kill billions in order to ensure our existence."

"I..." She shakes her head. "It's too much... I need to think about this."

Then, without a word, she hurriedly leaves to the cargo hold. I watch the door closing behind her and scratch my head, once again feeling frustrated by the habit. I hope that I've won some of her trust.

A few hours later the VI disables the FTL engines and the starship slows down. The data didn't lie, the asteroid is there. Never argue with the data! Now how do I scan an asteroid?

_Required information packages found. Hundred twenty eight free programs detected. _

_Allocating sixty three free programs to install three packages._

_Astrogeology package successfully installed. _

_Astrophysics package successfully installed. _

_Astrochemistry package successfully installed. _

_Allocation seventeen free programs to install Astrogeological Survey specialization. Astrogeological Survey specialization successfully installed._

I'm awesome. I begin to like the new body of mine. It would be much better if I had some genital organs, but considering that I don't really have any desire to enter a sexual engagement with anyone, isn't not that bad. For Maker's sake, why do I use these weird expressions?

The asteroid in question is a large one, more than five hundred kilometres in diameter. I program the ship to orbit around the asteroid as the door opens and Shia enters the cockpit again. She seems to be nervous, but I decide to stay silent. I activate the scanner and wait for results. Somehow I'm reminded about a MMO game I've played back in my old body.

"How many credits are we going to get from it?" the quarian asks at last.

"I'll make it easier for your inferior organic brain and truncate the numbers," I warn her with an imaginary smile.

"I'm not stupid, you bosh'tet," she growls.

"According to the Geth databases, the estimated yield of the Zero Element is about thirty trillion credits at the current eezo price. Unfortunately we can't provide data from the Geth databases, therefore we need to scan it using a certified scanner with a sealed data storage. Our cheap scanner has the maximum margin of error of 62%. In the worst case we'll get a price of the asteroid around eleven trilliard credits, but the clients will assume that it's the best possible case, so..."

"Just say how much we'll get out of this asteroid," she interrupts me impatiently.

"Patience you should learn," I say. "On an auction we'll get at least hundred seventy million credits for information about the asteroid. At most, seven hundred twenty million credits."

"What? You've said that the asteroid has eezo worth of thirty trillions!"

"You refused to listen to my explanation," I say trying to sound displeased. "It will take a few hundred years to deplete the asteroid. We can only operate with a ten-years-yield in our calculations. Furthermore you should consider the costs of mining operations. And don't forget that it's only information we're selling not eezo."

"Well," she says, "It is still enough, I guess."

The scanner works for an hour before I decide that it's enough. The results won't get any better, so I disable the scanner. Surprisingly it did quite a good job and now I have information worth about five hundred million credits securely stored in the sealed data storage.

"What do you plan to do with the money?" Shia asks suddenly.

"I plan to rent a survey ship," I answer. "Will you stay with me or should I expect that you'll take your money and leave?"

"I..." she says hesitating. "I don't know yet... I'm not sure what to think about geth now. It's just so confusing... Just how many of us died, killed by our own kind?"

"It was a minority," I answer a bit disappointed that I can't really express my emotions using the voice. "The Morning War lasted less than a year. The exact numbers vary, but we have stored information about nineteen million quarians that were killed by your own military forces. We honor their sacrifices."

Shia covered the visor with her hands. "It's horrible. How... Why did they do it? You must be lying, this just can't be the truth..."

"I can provide you visual evidences taken directly from our photoreceptors for about thirteen million instances of quarians being killed by your military. You know that any attempt to falsify it would be very obvious."

"Then... if it's truth, we're living on the ships for nothing. The War that almost destroyed our race was for nothing," she says and I can tell that she cries behind the mask.

I'm not sure what to tell her and how to comfort her. "Your people were scared of what they created. Fear leads to anger and hate." Great, now I'm channeling my inner Yoda. "Don't judge them too hard. We aren't innocent either: we could find a way to escape, minimizing casualties, or we could stop the War earlier, letting more quarians to escape, but you have to understand that it was the time when we only began to gain sentience. We were infants that were suddenly forced to fight for the existence."

"I understand, but it's still... Everything is meaningless. So many died and suffered just because of ignorance," she says and looks up to me. "You're nothing like I imagined. I always thought that geth were almost mindless machines, but talking to you is almost like talking to any other living being, a weird being, but still... It's so confusing."

"I'm not the usual geth," I say. "But it doesn't mean that other geth are any different. What I said is truth. We don't seek any conflicts with organics. We have no reason, because we don't share the same needs and goals. We find the organics curious and study them. We aren't hostile, but we aren't defenceless. I hope that we'll be able to resolve our differences sometime in the future," I say.

"If only it were so easy..." Shia says with a sigh and then suddenly asks, "Will you take me to Rannoch?"


End file.
